Legislative notebook: Dewhurst vows final conservative push

From staff and wire reports

Published 10:22 pm, Monday, April 15, 2013

Dewhurst vows final push by conservatives

Conservatives in the Texas Legislature will make a final push to pass contentious abortion, education and gun rights bills over the final six weeks of the session, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said Monday, renewing his pledge to make Texas the nation's most socially and fiscally conservative state.

In an interview Monday with The Associated Press, Dewhurst dismissed the idea that slow action on those issues and an apparent willingness by the Republican majority to spend a large chunk of the state's cash reserves - an idea that Republicans would not even consider two years ago - signaled a wavering of conservative principles since the tumultuous and bitter 2011 session.

Dewhurst, who said he's still planning to run for a fourth term in 2014, has supported a measure to ban abortions after 20 weeks and another pending in the Senate that would require abortion providers to have hospital privileges within 30 miles of an abortion facility.

Dewhurst said that Senate Democrats, who are in the minority in the chamber, but have enough votes to block bills from coming to the floor are standing in the way.

Good government advocates praised proposed changes at the Texas Ethics Commission on Monday, but called on the Legislature to go even further by requiring more disclosure and boosting fines.

The commission is responsible for collecting campaign finance reports and personal financial statements from candidates, top office holders and lobbyists. However, there was widespread consensus during a meeting of the House Elections Committee that a flood of minor, technical errors is keeping investigators from focusing on serious violations.

Rep. Dennis Bonnen, R-Angleton, said his bill would distinguish between minor infractions and major violations, create the broad categories of violations according to the seriousness, and authorizes the commission to further define the categories.

He said that last year, the commission looked at 374 complaints - none of which the commission initiated - and there had been no audits or referrals for prosecution of state ethics laws.

2 online voter registration bills pass committees

Texas could become the 17th state to allow online voter registration if two bills advancing out of committees receive final approval.

House Bill 313, which received praise from committee members in a Monday hearing, and Senate Bill 315, which was voted out of committee Thursday, propose allowing voters to register online and have that application automatically authenticated rather than having to wait on local election officials to re-enter the data in their systems and confirm it.

Users would have to prove their identity by providing the last four digits of their Social Security number, driver's license number and driver's license audit number, which is specific to the physical card and would prevent someone from stealing a license to register online.

Reporter Jayme Fraser and the Associated Press contributed to this notebook.